These are my links for August 26th through September 5th:
- Google pays $8.5m to settle Buzz privacy invasion suit – It's hard to feel sorry for web overlords Google, but 2010 appears to be their year of flops. After Orkut fails to gain ground, and their Google Wave failed to transform how people use email, Google Buzz have now been sued for inadvertently revealing users top contacts. Google Buzz seems to perform now better/different function to Twitter and Facebook, and is rarely used so is likely to lead to another wave goodbye moment. Interestingly, they will use the fine to support a $8.5M fund for internet prviacy organisations.
- File sharing solicitor to face disciplinary body – Which? Report on how solicitors heavy-handed techniques to accuse (often wrongly) consumers of illegal downloading are getting them a rap on the knuckles. Which? also have a useful guide to how to respond to an accusation of file-sharing. No doubt the implementation of the Digital Economy Bill will mean consumer should arm themselves with a better understanding of their legal rights.
- Crowd Sourcing HealthCare: Sustainable Digital Strategy for the Pharmaceutical Industry – An interesting comparison between lessons in social media monitoring, niche markets and crowd sourcing in the music industry, care of WIRED editor Chris Anderson, and how it can apply to the pharmaceutical industry.
- 500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
- 500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
These are my links for August 10th through August 15th:
- 500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
- The Little Book Series – Alterian produce the 'little book' series which are white papers about topics associated with social media marketing and digital engagement. They of course all skew back to promoting Alterian's products, but they're useful reads if you're serious about social media strategy planning and measurement.
- The Google Wave That Crashed – When the future has arrived when you're already here, you may be forgiven for not being on the bus, or missing it entirely. Google Wave was suppose to set out a new precendent for communication and collaboration, combining open forums with email and instant messenging. Google have now killed Wave, which had very low adoption. It was impossible to fanthom out. it didn't really scratch an itch. But it shows that being a bleeding-edge technology developer, even one as cash-rich and assured as Google, is definitely not a fail safe profession. I didn't even get to wave it hello.
- Maximidia | Ads of the World – Cute: 1950s style adverts for the products of today: Twitter, Skype, YouTube, Facebook.
- Is local the new global in mobile search marketing? – By 2013 some 1bn searches for local content will be made on mobiles, and the local business benefits greatly from local search. This article talks about developing your Google Places Optimisation to get ahead of the race for local search.
These are my links for July 16th from 04:07 to 13:16:
- YouTube to Award $5 Million in Grants to Video Producers in Pseudo-Production Fund – Since the decline of Bebo as an online video investor, it seems YouTube will be the next big investors exchanging product investment with ad sales. It certainly makes more sense as they're more sustainably funded (by Google) and there's an interest to them to make sure the content will drive audiences.
- Why Many Teens Are Moving on from Facebook – US led research suggests Facebook may be losing it's sheen with the teens – the crucial market to ensure long-term success. The question I wonder is where are they going? Back to Bebo or MySpace? It seems not. Perhaps we are shifting now away from the big destination networks to slightly more specialist spaces.
- Social media in China: an introduction – Some useful stats on how China is adapting to the internet. Although internet adoption is low, this still represents over 400 million internet users, all hungry for engagement, content and e-commerce.
- What Can Small Businesses Learn From Old Spice Viral Social Media Campaign – Bit late to party but Old Spice is causing a splash with their video and Twitter campaign to speak to the spice's new pin-up. This is a great approach – delighting audiences with personal responses and fun content, the perfect use of social media.
- Augmented Reality Explained by Common Craft – Another lovely hand made papercut video about high technology: this time Common Craft tackle augmented reality – what it is and what you can do with it today.
These are my links for June 9th through June 17th:
- Keynote: Three Ways Business Must Scale With Social Technologies – Jeremiah Owyang from Altimeter on how brand discussions are now 'off domain' and companies (this carries through from large to small I believe) need to consider how by linking together empowered customers, internal teams and technology you can scale to meet the rising challenges off managing customers in social media.
- Google Analytics for Facebook Fan Pages – A cheeky tech way to get the power of Google Analytics from you Facebook fan page data by adding an image to your fan page. A great way to compere your site and social network data.
- Google Caffeine jolts worldwide search machine – Google has now successfully rolled out the latest changes to it's search engine, known as 'Caffeine'. This now brings you fresher, faster jolts of content and news as websites are archived more quicky page by page, meaning content published could show up on search results within hours of not minutes. Great news for content producers reacting to timely news content, and a move towards the power of the real-time web.
- Q&A: Chris Gorell Barnes on online video for brands – Chril Barnes from Adjust Your Set (great company name) on online video for brands – interesting idea about a 'holy grail' of linking mobile video with vouchers to bring people in-store, and using in-store video to enhance sales promotions. He claims online video can increase conversion by 100% and reduce product returns by 60%.
These are my links for May 9th through May 16th:
- How to create compelling content that ranks well in search engines – A great 29 page e-book by Copyblogger author Brian Clark on how to make great web writing copy that also pushes all the SEO buttons. Some very useful tips, as a long pre-amble to promote his Scribe software which I admit has my interest: you enter your copy and the software gives you tips on how to improve it better for your chosen keywords.
- The Internet Conference: Powerpoint Presentations – Susan Hallam organised the Internet Conference last week in Nottingham, an impressive collection of speakers and presentations from major e-marketing, e-commerce and SEO experts. Here's are some presentations from the day.
- Matrix: How Facebook’s ‘Community Pages’ and Privacy Changes Impact Brands – Jeremiah Owyang's review of how Facebook's latest raft of changes are affecting brands: mostly as a negative effect. Facebook strategy is to aggregate the web, including wikipedia style aggregation, which negatively affects brands as well as personal privacy. In other news, web people vote overwhelmingly to say they prefer Facebook's 'fan' to 'like' status – which seems to have had the affect already of diluting loyalty to a Facebook Page. http://polldaddy.com/poll/3183296/ Overall, Facebook's endless tweaking and twisting seems to be having a negative affect on it's community. It's international gathering of staff to discuss privacy issues this week may signal a sea-change in their steam-roller approach to aggregating and connect all user data.
- Is Your Social Media Strategy Just Digital Flyering? – Good article by Andrew Girvan on lessons from theatre producers on the digital equivalent of flyering – Twitter broadcasting. Some good tips on doing it better: running special promotions, targetting groups of interest, and of course making your Twitter presence be conversational.
- From Realities to Values: A Strategy Framework for Digital Natives – No great answers here but a useful framework for understanding how to define and consider the needs of 'digital natives' (or the under 28s as this article defines them) when planning a digital strategy including content creation, engagement and advocacy.
